> i looked up the tracknames because i was confused. they turned out to be
> the latin terms for all kinds of bats. so at least its plausible
> greetings from germany, lingo

I thought this was a very interesting artistic choice, to label the tracks as types of bats. I too did some research, and couldn't see any particular connection between the type of bat and the music, but I didn't look very hard.

As far as Macrotus being the best music you've heard in a long time...
Well, I'd have to disagree, for my own part. I'm a composition student at a conservatory, and the sheer volume of work we listen to sort of nulls this out as being the best.

I feel like Richard Wagner has held a stranglehold over film music for much too long. People are finally starting to break out, like John Powell (I Am Sam, The Bourne Identity), Benoit Charest (Les Triplettes de Belleville), Yann Tiersen (Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulain), Elliot Goldenthal (Frida), and Don Davis (The Matrix), but for every one of them, there's another Hans Zimmer, John Williams, James Newton Howard, Harry Gregson-Williams, Klaus Badelt, or Howard Shore.

Granted, I think that the Wagnerian method of leitmotif works very well for film, and I think it might be impossible to release this technique entirely, because it really does work. However, I have grown tired of hearing the same Wagner brass and sweeping strings sound from composer after composer. There was a time when film composers were also art composers. Erich Korngold wrote concerti, for instance. Now, the only film composer I know of who's written a concert work is Howard Shore, and it's really just a reworking of his score for The Lord of the Rings. John Corigliano, an art composer who teaches at Juilliard, was drafted onto The Red Violin to write its score, and the resultant oevre is incredible. It also uses leitmotif, but varies its textures in such a way that interest is never lost. Also, before writing the score for the film, Corigliano wrote a Chaconne - a 17-minute mini-concerto for the violin - that forms the basis for his score, but is also a piece of legitimate art music, and can be treated independantly from the film.

I just feel that Wagner's influence is a little stretched, as of now, and it's time for composers to be using their own ingenuity.